


How Does Your Garden Grow?

by Black_Hole_of_Procrastination



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9878084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination/pseuds/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination
Summary: Margaery is an inattentive gardener until a winter rose catches her eye.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one's a little over the place and I overdid the garden puns a bit, but hey...I had fun.

She is a child of seven when Mother gives her a spade.

Though it is finely made, with a polished rosewood handle engraved with the sigil of their house, it is far from the most enticing of her nameday gifts. Margaery is more drawn to the doll from Father, with it’s pretty porcelain face and real golden curls or even the heavy book on constellations Willas gives her along with his promise of helping her find them in the night sky.

Still, Margaery knows Mother owns a spade of it’s like. She has spied it tucked into the basket Mother carries when she takes to the gardens in the afternoon. Margaery aches to be like her Mother in all things, and so she listens attentively when Mother explains the import of her gift.

“It requires more than sunlight and rain for a thing to bloom. It takes a gentle hand, careful attention, and _patience_ ,” Mother says, offering the polished handle of her gift to Margaery. “What are our words?”

“Growing strong!”

“That’s right,” Mother smiles. She reaches to gently cup Margaery’s chin in her hand. “And it is our house’s duty to tend to the Reach so it may continue to grow strong. Do you understand, pet?”

Margaery nods though she is not sure she understands what a spade has to do with any of that.

The next afternoon, Margaery trails after her Mother’s skirts in the gardens, a basket over one arm, her nameday present tucked safely inside.

* * *

She is a girl of ten when she is entrusted with the care of a small portion of the south gardens.

Margaery puffs up with pride, feeling quite grown up to receive such a responsibility. But while she is eager to please Mother, she soon learns she has no love for the work she’s been tasked.

It hardly seems like a ladylike pursuit to spend hours crouched and toiling out of doors. Margaery hates the soil which dirties her hems and gets stuck beneath her nails. She despairs when she begins to freckle unbecomingly in the sun, and instructs her maids to draw her a milk bath in hopes of remedying some of the damage. And the famed Highgarden roses become her bitterest enemy, scratching and leaving bloody tracks on her hands and arms, and tangling in her curls.

It is less than a moon’s turn before she abandons the project in a fit of pique, her temper pricked nearly as much as her hands.

Without her dubious care, the roses become overgrown and ungainly, overtaking the path.

“Margaery's Wilderness,” the family takes to calling the plot it in jest. Margaery only turns up her nose and declares that she prefers it wild anyway.

* * *

She is a maid of three-and-ten when Granny teaches her to tend a different sort of garden.

It requires no spade or rake, only the tools Margaery already has naturally at her disposal. A smile. A coquettish look. A teasing remark. These are all that are needed to unearth the things men seek to conceal.

Margaery delights in these intrigues. They are a needed distraction with Loras now a squire at Storm’s End and Garlan soon to be wed and away in a keep of his own.

Though they are no replacement for her brothers, Margaery begins to keep company with some of her kinswomen.

She finds her cousins are much easier roses to manage than those that grow in the south gardens. With care and attention, she prunes them into her likeness, each pretty and charming. Granny’s eyes and ears about the keep.

Her little rosebuds are docile puppets who hang on Margaery’s every word, and while there is a sort of charm in that, Margaery grows to find their companionship and Granny's schemes tedious over time.

* * *

She is a woman of six-and-ten when a winter rose joins her garden.

Granny counsels her to make a friend of the Stark girl. Hostage though she may be, she is a key to the North, and it is imperative that she is swayed to their side.

Margaery has no need for such inducements. Sansa Stark is reason enough. She is lovely, and gentle, and so very unhappy.

_She is lonely_ , Margaery thinks, watching as Sansa walks the godswood, a Kingsguard trailing in her wake. It is a revelation that reaches something in Margaery, a sort of kindred ache that prods her to action. She makes a favorite of the girl, often inviting her to take tea in the gardens and accompany her to prayers.

_A gentle hand. Careful attention. Patience._

Margaery puts Mother’s counsel from so long ago into practice, and though gentleness and patience do not come so naturally to her, Margaery finds it is no hardship where Sansa Stark is concerned.

Bit by bit Margaery marvels to see the icy courtesy her new companion dons like plate armor thaw into genuine warmth and affection.

Sansa is a constant fixture in Maidenvault and Margaery mourns the not so far off day when Mother will take Sansa back with her to Highgarden.

Perhaps, once she’s given Willas a son, Sansa may be permitted to return as one of Margaery’s ladies. _Perhaps..._

* * *

She is a queen of twenty when she revisits the sorry portion of garden that had once been her charge.

“Margaery’s Wilderness” is considerably less wild than when she left it, and it is not the only thing to have blossomed under Willas’s steadfast care.

In the years since their parting, Sansa has flourished into womanhood. Gone is the pale, unhappy girl of Margaery’s remembrances and in her place stands a lady so unbearably lovely, the queen cannot help but stare at her brazenly throughout the welcome feast. Sansa meets her eye only once. A blush heats through her cheeks, and her lips curving into a sly smile she hides behind the rim of her winecup.

_A rose for the plucking._

Their husbands are occupied at the stables, Tommen eager to see a gelding Willas has been training for tourneys, when they find themselves alone in some forgotten corner of the grounds.

“Your grace, we shouldn’t…” the Lady of Highgarden protests, but even as she says the words, Sansa’s arms wind like vines about Margaery’s neck, drawing her in ever closer.

Margaery grins before continuing to press openmouthed kisses along the gentle slope of Sansa’s neck.

“Oh but we _should_ , my lady,” she encourages with a merry laugh.

Sansa’s skirts petal around Margaery’s arm as she dips her hand below the waist of Sansa’s smallclothes. Sansa trembles as Margaery’s fingers find her sensitive bud. She arches forward, drawing her queen into an ardent kiss.

Margaery knows she has proved a fickle gardner in the past, but _this_ is the only flower she means to tend.

 


End file.
